All,
Did you know that Atsion had a turntable? Let me explain, and if you have “The Trail of the Blue Comet” turn to page 149.
A turntable was used to turn the engine, or for that matter, any individual train car around so that it was heading in the opposite direction. For example, if a train arrived from Atlantic City at Atsion, and they wanted to have the same engine return to AC from there, they would drive the engine onto the turntable and rotate it around. They then could return it to the main track, hook up, and return to AC.
As you might think, this turntable had to be quite large, and I was wondering if there was anything at the location remaining that I could find. So early this morning Jessica and I traveled to Atsion to investigate. I knew the general area, but to be more certain of it’s exact location I used the “scale” depicted on the map in “The Trail of the Blue Comet” to plot a location and upload to my GPS. Upon arrival at Atsion, we let the GPS take us there, arriving at the exact location. And sure enough we were not disappointed.
There is a very large round depression in the ground where the turntable was located, along with a massive base where the center of the turntable rotated. And with the obvious assumption that tracks had to run to this location, it was not hard to find the raised remains of the path that the tracks followed. It is quite an interesting place that I am guessing that all of you but one have been so close to, and never knew it was there. That one person is not me
Here is the center base complete with mounting holes.
These next two photo’s really do not show the area properly, but will have to do for now. This one shows Jessica standing on the edge of the opposite side of the round depression. Look closely and you can see the center base in the center of the depression.
And this photo is the raised area where the track entered or exited the turntable. Again, sun shining through trees results in poor photo’s.
From there we headed to Parkdale where I did not want to chance one puddle with my car, so we headed to another location and I realized I forgot to enter the coordinates into my GPS. We finally settled on Rockwood where I had a few things I wanted to recheck. One was I wanted to look for a stone that Steve and I found the location of a few years back where the hole was there but not the stone. It was flooded then and we looked as best we could in the water, and I wanted to check again. The water was much lower and I am confident now there is nothing there
I also checked on a stone we had found, that should have been inscribed. At the time we decided that the top had been damage so much that it was unreadable. But after two more years of experience since then, I gave it more of a look-over. Sure enough I felt there was something inscribed on it. So I returned to the car for my trusty chalk, and worked away at it like a little kid. Adding some water made it even better. And to my surprise I was rewarded with this. It reads CGR 1888 for Charles Green Rockwood. There are officially three inscribed stones at Rockwood now.
It was a good day
Guy
Did you know that Atsion had a turntable? Let me explain, and if you have “The Trail of the Blue Comet” turn to page 149.
A turntable was used to turn the engine, or for that matter, any individual train car around so that it was heading in the opposite direction. For example, if a train arrived from Atlantic City at Atsion, and they wanted to have the same engine return to AC from there, they would drive the engine onto the turntable and rotate it around. They then could return it to the main track, hook up, and return to AC.
As you might think, this turntable had to be quite large, and I was wondering if there was anything at the location remaining that I could find. So early this morning Jessica and I traveled to Atsion to investigate. I knew the general area, but to be more certain of it’s exact location I used the “scale” depicted on the map in “The Trail of the Blue Comet” to plot a location and upload to my GPS. Upon arrival at Atsion, we let the GPS take us there, arriving at the exact location. And sure enough we were not disappointed.
There is a very large round depression in the ground where the turntable was located, along with a massive base where the center of the turntable rotated. And with the obvious assumption that tracks had to run to this location, it was not hard to find the raised remains of the path that the tracks followed. It is quite an interesting place that I am guessing that all of you but one have been so close to, and never knew it was there. That one person is not me
Here is the center base complete with mounting holes.
These next two photo’s really do not show the area properly, but will have to do for now. This one shows Jessica standing on the edge of the opposite side of the round depression. Look closely and you can see the center base in the center of the depression.
And this photo is the raised area where the track entered or exited the turntable. Again, sun shining through trees results in poor photo’s.
From there we headed to Parkdale where I did not want to chance one puddle with my car, so we headed to another location and I realized I forgot to enter the coordinates into my GPS. We finally settled on Rockwood where I had a few things I wanted to recheck. One was I wanted to look for a stone that Steve and I found the location of a few years back where the hole was there but not the stone. It was flooded then and we looked as best we could in the water, and I wanted to check again. The water was much lower and I am confident now there is nothing there
I also checked on a stone we had found, that should have been inscribed. At the time we decided that the top had been damage so much that it was unreadable. But after two more years of experience since then, I gave it more of a look-over. Sure enough I felt there was something inscribed on it. So I returned to the car for my trusty chalk, and worked away at it like a little kid. Adding some water made it even better. And to my surprise I was rewarded with this. It reads CGR 1888 for Charles Green Rockwood. There are officially three inscribed stones at Rockwood now.
It was a good day
Guy
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